by Marc Cameron
“Bright Jonas,” Bob said without hesitation. “No question about it. I’ve not had the pleasure of meeting the buxom lass but, to put it in FISHWIVES! terms, I’d say she’s quite a catch. That damn fool Fitz doesn’t seem to realize what he has.”
Blind Bob indeed, Cutter thought, still whittling.
Bob put his hands together as if in prayer, eyes sparkling. “What about you, miss? Who’s your favorite Fishwife?”
“I’m squarely in the Svetlana camp,” Fontaine said.
“There’s one named Svetlana?” Cutter asked.
“She was the weepy one wearing black leggings at the break-in where we met Trooper Benjamin.”
“I see,” Cutter said. There’d been a lot of leggings and a lot of tears, but he thought he knew who Fontaine meant.
“Wait a minute,” Bob said. “There was a break-in? Bright wasn’t harmed, was she?”
“No, sir.” Cutter shook his head. “She’s fine. But the show’s producer and one of the camera operators are missing. As is a Tlingit girl named Millie Burkett.”
“Millie’s gone missing?” Bob’s mouth hung open, genuinely surprised. “When?”
“For a couple of days,” Cutter said, staying vague on purpose. “You know Millie?”
“Good kid. Real inquisitive. She started coming out to the camp a couple of weeks ago, right after I got here this year,” Bob said. “At first she wanted to make a documentary about everyone in the camp, but you can imagine how that went over with a bunch of wrecks just trying to be lost to the rest of the world.”
Cutter lowered the knife and looked up.
“Did her project make anyone upset enough to hurt her?”
Blind Bob shook his head. “Nah,” he said. “Poor kid felt so bad about her misguided attempt she brought us a couple boxes of donuts to apologize. . . .” He looked at Cutter with sad eyes, thinking. “A couple of days would put her disappearance about the same time that Travis Todd pervert was here.”
“Why would you say he’s a pervert?” Fontaine asked.
“You don’t spend a lifetime with your head buried in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders without learning to spot a psychopath.” Blind Bob gave a sheepish grin. “Though the females of that ilk are a little harder to identify.”
Cutter chuckled, still carving. “On that we can agree,” he said. “Did Todd say where he was going?”
“Afraid not,” Bob said. “He did seem like he was in sort of a hurry though, now that you mention it.” The homeless man brightened. “I don’t have a phone, but if you’re on Facebook I can send you a message if he comes back.”
“That would be grand, Bob,” Fontaine said. “I’m under Lola Teariki.”
Fontaine’s cell began to chirp. “Sorry,” she said, standing to excuse herself. She walked toward the beach to get a better signal.
“You’re a lucky man,” Bob said to Cutter after she’d gone.
“She and I aren’t an item,” Cutter said. “We just work together.”
Bob scoffed. “Don’t you be blind. You could be working with the likes of Meg. Count your blessings, man.”
Fontaine came back a moment later. “That was Sam,” she said.
“Who?” Cutter said.
“Trooper Benjamin,” she said. Glaring, knowing that he’d just made her spell it out when he knew exactly who Sam was. “He’s going to need you to do that underwater search after all.” She gave a sad shake of her head and mouthed the words “Millie Burkett,” so Bob couldn’t hear.
Cutter stood to leave, returning the Barlow to his pocket and extending his hand. “Thank you for your candor, Bob,” he said. “I never did catch your last name.”
“Do you really need it?”
“I guess not,” Cutter said, shaking Blind Bob’s hand and wondering if he’d ever meet another hobo with an iPad and a Facebook account. It suddenly struck him that he was indeed a lucky man. Thankfully, none of his previous wives had tried to kill him for the insurance, at least not so far as he knew.
CHAPTER 27
CASSANDRA BROWN AWOKE ON HER BELLY SHE WAS NESTLED INTO a pile of quilts that Miss January stored in the quarter berth, a narrow tube of a bunk down the stairs from the wheelhouse. The rear deck was directly above her. To her right was the fish locker—if Miss January would have ever used the thing. The little compartment was below the waterline, and beads of condensation ran down Tide Dancer’s fiberglass hull, dampening the blankets if they brushed the wall to her left.
Cassandra rubbed her eyes, trying to figure out what had roused her. The grinding whir of a boat starter. The motor stopped and Miss January filled the silence with her curses. The starter whirred again, and the motor chugged to life, urged on, no doubt, by the cursing. Sometimes, when Cassandra wanted something to happen very badly, she thought curse words in her mind—not the really bad ones like Miss Cross used, but bad enough they should have gotten the job done. But they rarely did. Things either happened or they didn’t. Thinking curse words in your mind just didn’t work as well as saying them. Or maybe grown-up words carried more power than those of a kid like her.
The motor struggled as they chugged out of the harbor and along the breakwater past Cemetery Island. Cassandra couldn’t see it, but she could picture in her mind exactly where they were. Two minutes later, Miss January added power, easing the strain and picking up speed. Havoc scampered down the companionway, whining when he saw Cassandra. He licked her face as if to try and tell her something, and then scampered back up the stairs. Miss January said something to the dog, but Cassandra couldn’t quite hear it. It didn’t matter. Havoc talked no more than she did. There was no way he would tell Miss Cross that she had a stowaway. By the time she found out, they’d be too far out to turn back and everything would be fine.
The boat rocked once, then pitched violently, shoving Cassandra against the clammy hull. They must have been rounding Fish Egg Island, moving into the storm chop of the wide fetch between Fish Egg and San Fernando Island, a mile away.
At the wheel above, Miss January began to curse in earnest now, helping the boat through the storm with her words.
Cassandra snuggled down in the quilts and closed her eyes. This was going to be a bad one. But Cassandra’s uncle was home—and no matter the storm, and no matter how much Miss January cursed, nothing could possibly be as bad as that.
* * *
January Cross reached above the wheel and touched the varnished teak plaque her father had made for her when she was fifteen. It was a quote by Isak Dinesen.
“The cure for anything is salt water—sweat, tears, or the sea.”
Boats were sparse in both the North and South Harbors by the time she motored out past Fish Egg Island and turned back to the northwest toward San Christoval Channel. Many of the inlets, islands, and passages around Prince of Wales had been named by two Spanish explorers, both named Francisco, who arrived a few years before Captain George Vancouver and his ship HMS Discovery. Prince of Wales was so large, the Spaniards hadn’t realized they were looking at an island, so left that to the British explorer.
The herring fleet was up ahead, beyond Christoval. They’d yet to come into sight, but January heard their excited chatter on the marine radio. It was a party out there, and though she’d been invited, she’d decided not to attend. The FISHWIVES! cameras would be there, and her presence would just give them fodder for their sick conspiracy theory. She’d let the guys have their fun.
In some areas of Southeast Alaska, the spawn-on-kelp herring roe harvest was a winner-take-all fishery. But crews here on POW worked together toward a common goal. The chatter on the radio was convivial and far from the cutthroat attitudes portrayed on FISHWIVES!—no matter how Carmen Delgado tried to spin it.
Even so, Cross felt more pity for the woman than any kind of animosity—and not just because she’d gone missing. Carmen Delgado was a smart, if morally corrupt woman. January was pretty sure Delgado had enough of a conscious to get a little nauseated
when she looked in the mirror every morning. It was sad really. And anyway, she would probably stagger into town any minute with a good story to tell about how their car ran off the road. She was probably already there. That thought made January happy she’d already taken Tide Dancer out.
She took a wave on the beam, cursed, and adjusted course to make the ride a little less like a rodeo. There were a hell of a lot of reasons to be gone from town, even in the storm.
It sounded like the troopers had found Millie Burkett’s body near Soda Bay. Poor kid. That was a tragic deal. But everyone, including Cross, had warned the girl not to go turning over stones and filming what was underneath. The darkest secrets on this island were buried for a reason.
January had chased her pod of orca around the south end of the island for the past week. This Marshal Cutter was a smart dude. He was sure to suspect her, at least a little.
It did no good to worry. She really couldn’t help what he thought. She had to admit though, the marshal was worth mulling over. January cursed herself for not being a little more persuasive during their conversation. There was a serenity in the man’s face that at once relaxed her and put her on edge. She wondered what kind of sailor he was. Her father always said you could tell a lot about a man by the way he handled a boat.
Anyway, nothing to be done about it now. Nothing to be done about any of it.
A rising wind brought larger waves, shoving the bow around, pushing thoughts of the deputy to the back of her mind. She quartered into the waves as much as possible, maneuvering Tide Dancer between the clutter of the tiny Hermanos Islands, and favoring the south side of San Christoval as she headed into the Gulf of Esquibel. She would be relatively protected there, from the infinitely larger Gulf of Alaska. Still, Esquibel was wide enough to turn up some serious chop and she poured on the power, hoping to make a quick run north to the lee of Heceta Island. The teeth of the storm would be on them soon, and she would bite down hard enough to hurt.
January kept her course generally north/northwest, taking breaking five-foot seas off the bow. The ocean was angry, and the waves would be twice that in an hour—perhaps even bigger. Even fighting the waves, January found it impossible to stop thinking about Cutter. It was stupid to get wrapped around the axle over a man who considered her a kidnapping suspect. For all she knew, he suspected her of murder as well. Even if he did decide to brave the drive over the logging road and come question her some more, he was likely to bring his Polynesian lady partner. He wasn’t on this island to play. He had a job to do and it looked like he was good at it.
January couldn’t help but wonder how good.
This island had been idyllic when she’d arrived four months before. Isolation and frequent rain seemed to wash away the hang-ups so common in the rest of the modern world. Friendly chats over shopping carts at the AC store were common. Everyone on the island knew if so and so’s kid got accepted to the nursing program in Anchorage or joined the army or was down in Seattle working as a barista with a new boyfriend who had ear gauges.
January hadn’t known a soul when she’d arrived in midwinter to get the boat ready. It was hard work, and many times she’d found herself unequal to the task. She’d never asked for help, but people from Craig and nearby Klawock had dropped by to help— men, women, and kids alike. That’s how she’d met Cassandra. Even Bright Jonas had baked a plate of brownies to celebrate the completion of the work—a “boat-warming” gift. That’s just what folks did on an island where family was often thousands of miles away.
And then the FISHWIVES! people arrived.
The change had been a slow burn, sneaking up on everyone involved. Carmen Delgado had invited January to lunch early on. She was full of smiles and promises about showcasing Tlingit and Haida culture, even vowing to highlight strong Native women to her television audience as an example to younger indigenous women around the country. She and her production company made a litany of promises and burned up several days of January’s time shooting video, camouflaging questions about local “characters” with lengthy discussions of Tlingit values and traditions. They ended up with hours of footage that they could cut and edit into all sorts of slanted crap. Thankfully, January never signed a release.
The eclectic—and just plain weird—film crew flooded onto the island like an irresistible tide. FISHWIVES! was as quirky as it was unstoppable. Delgado was swept up in the wave and, embarrassed to meet January’s eye, stopped talking to her altogether. January retreated to the safety of the hidden coves around the island during the first two weeks of filming, spending time instead following her pod of killer whales.
When she returned to Craig, she found that Delgado’s betrayal was even worse than she’d imagined. Not only had FISHWIVES! completely ignored any promised Native connection, they’d written January in as some sort of boat-borne succubus, a lusty siren who skulked around the harbors stealing the hearts of married men.
Even so, it was worrisome that Delgado had disappeared. January wouldn’t put it past her to do this as some sort of publicity stunt—but that was probably over the top, even for the producer of such a bizarre television show.
She climbed a face of a wave, then surfed down the other side, taking green water over the bow. It was time to get out of this.
She gave the Yanmar diesel more throttle, feeling the hardy little boat shudder as she passed the Culebras, longish, snakelike islands along the coast. January often wondered about those brave Franciscos—and Vancouver and his crew—who navigated by sextant and took soundings with a lead line to negotiate treacherous shoals. Their ships were larger than Tide Dancer, but they were older too, with no engine but wind and sail. A storm like this must have been horrific.
Honest seven-footers began to break over the port rail, throwing spray onto her windshield. She cheated into the wind, attempting to abate the roll, planning to cut back north when she was closer to the protection of Heceta Island. The Lowrance satellite display above her wheel showed her already sailing into the edges of the bright orange blob that was the storm.
A navy father and Tlingit mother had taught her from childhood to look for signs of coming weather. Satellite images and the falling barometers only confirmed the observations she’d already made of the natural world around her.
Just this morning, she’d watched kids fishing from the docks get strike after strike, taking home heavy stringers of fish. The moon had been particularly bright last night, and such a clear and dustless sky, her mother said, was a good forecast of a storm. Even the harbormaster’s gray tabby cat felt the storm’s approach and spent all morning sitting on the docks, grooming its sensitive ears in advance of the approaching low pressure system.
This was going to be a bad one.
January didn’t care. She wasn’t about to spend another night near town. Intermittent raindrops spattered against the windshield. Now and then, the bow hit a larger than average swell, plowing in and driving green water up and over the gunnels to splash against the glass and drain out through the scuppers. She slid the side window open enough to let in some of the breeze, licking her lips to taste the air.
Kaguk Cove ran north and south, paralleling the narrows in the lee of not only Heceta Island, but a sizable peninsula of Prince of Wales Island itself. The protected waters offered the perfect anchorage to wait out a storm. She just had to make the sixteen-mile trip before the squall hit. Her little boat chugged along at a hair over nine knots in good weather. She was doing half that now, bashing against the wind and waves.
Three hours in this crap was going to be ugly.
CHAPTER 28
CARMEN DELGADO FOUND IT IMPOSSIBLE TO CONTROL HER SHAKING hands as she took the neatly folded stack of clean clothing. Manuel Alvarez-Garza had seen to everything. Or, at least, his men had. There was clean underwear, socks, a black cashmere sweater, and a pair of linen slacks that were surely more expensive than anything Carmen had ever tried on, even as a lark. An attractive woman wearing an equally expensive pantsuit sat o
n the white, tufted leather settee at the other end of the boat’s spacious salon. She glared as if Carmen had just stolen her boyfriend. Carmen guessed her to be from somewhere in Colombia, judging from her propensity to drop her S’s and speak Spanish at a blistering, almost unintelligible pace. Chago and Luis stood well back from their boss as if fearful of being backhanded for just being there. Luis held a moist cloth to the wound on his nose, the hateful fire still burning in his eyes.
“I must apologize for the behavior of my men,” Garza said. “Of course, I am well aware that as a prisoner, it is your duty to try and escape. But you must also understand that it is the duty of those I employ to punish you for this attempt.”
Garza was what Carmen’s mother called a close-talker. He loomed over her when he spoke, consoling and intimidating at the same time, near enough to smell his cologne—which for a madman, was not overbearing.
“But you are here now,” he said, with a smile that was almost genuine. “All having done their respective duty. You must be starving, pobrecita.” He flicked manicured fingers, gesturing down the passageway. “Please, have a hot shower and get dressed. We will discuss the course that lies before us when you are clean and we are eating a hot meal.”
Carmen managed a trembling nod. Garza seemed to accept that in lieu of actual words and nodded toward the cabin door.
“You may lie down and have a rest after your shower if you wish,” he said. “Beti will retrieve you when the meal is ready. I think you’ll find Luis is quite talented in the galley, despite his poor manners.”
Carmen shut the door. She heard the click of a dead bolt sliding home from the outside. Being locked into a room on a boat should have terrified her, but she didn’t care. It felt good to have a lock between her and these evil men, even if that lock was on their side.
The cabin was cramped, but luxuriously appointed, with varnished teak lockers and crystal lamps. A small flat-screen television was fixed to the bulkhead at the foot of the queen-size bed. Two long portholes allowed in plenty of natural light. A padded slide-out bench sat beneath a spotless vanity mirror. There was just enough room to walk up one side of the bed and reach the door to the bathroom.
